


Speaking Her Mind

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Gen, and how damned smart ahsoka is, metaphorically, that's your warning for the fact that he gets smacked, the divergence is just on a few quibbles i have with the Rebels timeline, this is not an easy story for qui-gon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 12:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11555637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Ahsoka winds up on a world where the rocks are Force-Sensitive and memories, as well as ghosts, intrude.





	Speaking Her Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SLWalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/gifts).



> If you missed the tags, Qui-Gon may not be painted in the nicest light in this fic. Please bear that in mind, while choosing if you wish to read.

_5 years past Empire Day_

Ahsoka hadn't even known what the name of the world was. She had just felt a pressing need to go there, to continue exploring her abilities with the Force. Then again, after spending far too many weeks on Dathomir, she had to admit she needed the peace of this river and mountain-strewn world.

The Light Side all but teemed here, and she had found a cabin to borrow, right off a river in the foothills. She was looking forward to getting her head straightened out, listening to the Force, and preparing for the return to Bail's movement.

She had not expected to throw herself into a full-fledged breakdown of her entire emotional well-being because of a rock.

* * *

_1st year of the Clone Wars, post-Christophsis_

"Ow!"

"Ahsoka?!"

"Oh you found it? Good!"

The youngest of the three members sharing the shelter set aside for the Jedi on this Force-forsaken campaign glared at the eldest, even as she picked up the rock that should not have been inside the shelter, attacking her innocent bare feet.

Granted, she shouldn't have tried stumbling out of her cot before she was fully awake, but the sound of her master actually laughing had broken her sleep and she had wanted to hear the joke.

Maybe once her montrals came in fully, she'd have enough spatial awareness to dodge rocks too.

"I'm fine, Skyguy. Why is there a rock on the floor? Inside the shelter? That just got put up yesterday? And why is Master Obi-Wan happy about it?"

Anakin had to chuckle. "Well, the rock is actually my fault, but I dropped it when we stumbled in last night. Obi-Wan promised to help me look for it, but we didn't want to wake you up when I actually realized it was missing."

"It's a rock," she answered that rather crossly.

Now Obi-Wan shook his head. "Look closer, Ahsoka. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you don't notice faster than the pair of us, given how like my master you can be, in your awareness of the now, and the Living Force."

Ahsoka's nose wrinkled, but she looked at the rock in her hand. It was pretty enough, and…

…it started calling her, softly, or rather, singing within the Force. Her eyes went wide, and she very swiftly tossed it to Anakin, who caught it easily.

"It doesn't bite," Anakin said, but he slipped it away in an inner pocket. "It's a meditation focus, that Obi-Wan gave me."

"As my master gave it to me, just a day or two after accepting me as his student," Obi-Wan said, settling back on his cot.

"Tell me about him, and it?" Ahsoka invited, as she went and clambered onto Anakin's cot, tucking under his arm.

"As neither of us is much for sleep, but the storm has disrupted the enemy worse than it hit us, certainly," Obi-Wan said, settling in to be the storyteller.

* * *

_5 years past Empire Day_

When Ahsoka managed to suck in air that wasn't mixed with sobbing, she found herself face to face with the energy of a dead soul. Her contacts on Dathomir had helped her learn how to contend with those; amazingly, a lot of the relics she had found to learn from were guarded by such.

She appraised the being, slowly focusing him, she decided at last, into view by steady infusion of the Force.

He looked shocked, as his presence sharpened into the near-hologram quality that some spirits could attain on their own, or with such help.

"You … you're Qui-Gon Jinn?" Ahsoka asked, not certain she was placing the spirit correctly, and then she wanted to kick herself. One of the first rules of dealing with such beings was never volunteer information.

"I am. And you are Anakin's padawan," he said, letting go of his shock. "You not only knew I was here, but you have … brought me into focus?"

"Learned a few tricks from a witch or three," she said nonchalantly. "So, are you as big a pain in the _shebs_ in death as you seemed to be in life?"

Her rather blunt question caught him completely off-guard, and he had to choose between demanding what she thought she was doing or actually asking what she meant, a conflict that was quite evident in his ghostly demeanor.

"I died within the same year you came to the Temple as a very young one," Qui-Gon opted for. "All of your information is second-hand."

"It might be, but it's pretty consistent, from various sources. The only one that **always** held you up in great light? Was my master, and I've come to realize that knowing a person less than a week, even if they are your Finder, doesn't make you an expert on them." She realized then that she was still holding the rock that had drawn her attention, the Force-Sensitive stone, picked up out of the water she had put her bare feet into before she was wracked with memories of a happier time.

Memories, she knew, that would likely be the only joy of her life, unless they were able to destroy this Empire that had brought the galaxy to pain and suffering unlike any it had seen since the ancient Sith Empire.

With care, she put the stone into a pouch on her belt, drawing Qui-Gon's eyes. She sensed him settle back from his prickliness… and that did not suit her.

"Did you think a magic rock would be enough? To make up for the hell that the boy my grandmaster was had been through? Did you really believe that your Master was right, because of one failure? That you should never, ever be close to another being again? Is that how you were able to absolutely betray him after twelve years together? How you managed to leave him with as much insecurity at the end of his training as he began it with?"

She could tell her words were cutting deep, but she kept at it until she asked them all, and the ghost bowed his head.

"You did not learn these things from Obi-Wan or Anakin alone."

"No, I didn't. There's this thing where my people are clannish by nature? And we also are powerful observers. Comes with the whole hunt-culture thing," Ahsoka said. "So, the stories didn't fully match up to the skills and the emotions. And I knew masters that had known my grandmaster as a padawan. Had seen him with you. 

"They liked comparing me to him, to balance the fact I was more like — more like Anakin," and she barely managed to get past the break in her voice as she said it, "in their own little minds. Not that it mattered much when it came down to it. But yes, I observed and asked questions. And I know that you were so hot-cold with my grandmaster that it is a small wonder it wasn't **him** that fell to the Sith instead of my Anakin!"

Qui-Gon jerked at that last. "You… know?"

Ahsoka flinched, then wrapped her arms around her knees, drawing her feet out of the edge of the water. "Anakin never learned how to let go. Probably had something to do with being a traumatized ex-slave torn away from his mother without fully understanding what he was consenting to," she said, voice hard. "There's a murmur of his darkness, always brushing against my mind. And it is so easy, after all I pieced together by asking the right people the right questions, to throw a lot of that at your feet.

"But I am not the one to take the easy path. Yes, I think you wrecked Master Obi-Wan. I think that sabotaged my master pretty hard, because Obi-Wan didn't know how to support and be close, so he was just critical, at the wrong times, just like he'd grown up with."

"I never meant—"

"Doesn't matter what you meant, Master Jinn. Just like it didn't matter what he meant. And how it didn't matter that I am sure my master never meant to walk into the Dark.

"But you bear some responsibility here… and I think, since the Force dragged me here, and made you show up too, that you should start fixing some of it."

Qui-Gon's ghost frowned, and then he shook his head. "How, young one? I haven't even been able to manifest past my voice, all this time."

Ahsoka took a deep breath. "By teaching me. I'm trying. I'm finding relics and holocrons and teachers in other traditions. But you? You were a Jedi for sixty years, a master that should have been on the Council they all said, except you argued over the direction the Order was going. You questioned.

"Well, I question too. I am no Jedi, but I serve the Force. You couldn't be here if you did not serve it as well. Teach me."

Qui-Gon smiled. "That, young one, I shall do."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Of Sabers and Falling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12390093) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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